Brand New to Soil

[BCbud9]

Okay so I am getting close to the end of my first grow using DWC(Deep Water Culture).. The problems I have with DWC is that I have a 4 planter 5 gal bucket and can only grow 1 large plant at a time in it so I just switched it out for a normal bucket and will probably use the other bucket for some clones until they get bigger then put them in a different bucket on their own.. But if I wanted to grow more plants, for each plant I would have to get
-1 Bucket
-Air Pump
-Air Stone
-Pellets

Which adds up to around 20-30 bucks a plant at the least not to mention the PH and Nutrient solution. Which isn't to bad but I am starting to think it will be cheaper and easier to go for soil plus I wouldn't mind getting a feel for each method just to have a little bit more knowledge in a different area. I can then see what I like better based on my own experiences.

So my questions are (Sorry in advanced, my question mark button on keyboard isn't working properly so can we just pretend ! is a question mark)

When growing in soil how does the plant get the nutrients it needs!
Do nutes need to be mixed into the soil before planting or do I just mix it in with the water I will be misting the plant with!
If mixed into the water spray bottle, how does the plant get nutrients it needs during flowering stage when you cant mist the plant!

And I started a couple of clones from my plant that was in about 3 weeks flowering, once they rooted about 1.5-2 weeks later I put the in some soil and not long after under a CFL by a fan the top layer of the soil was covered in mold. .. I was misting the cuttings everyday, sometimes twice but I never soaked the soil or anything. So how do you avoid mold from growing on the soil!

That's pretty much all I have to ask so far and I am sorry if they are some really basic questions for you soil growers but I am brand new to soil and cant find anything so I thought I would put up my questions.. This site helped me through my DWC but I cant find what I need to know for growing in soil..

Like I said I am brand new to soil so any other info or tips like what soil to use or what nutrients to use is appreciated.. Any tricks or tips for success is great.

Thanks

 

[Conradino23]

When playing with dirt you can approach it from two sides: organic or chemical. First method tries to keep the soil alive by putting bacteria and fungi to work for the plants' health, the other one relies on nutrients available to be uptaken by the plants straight away.

I'll use an extract from Wikipedia to explain how different fertilizers work:

Fertilizers are broadly divided into organic fertilizers (composed of organic plant or animal matter), or inorganic or commercial fertilizers. Plants can only absorb their required nutrients if they are present in easily dissolved chemical compounds. Both organic and inorganic fertilizers provide the same needed chemical compounds. Organic fertilizers provided other macro and micro plant nutrients and are released as the organic matter decays—this may take months or years. Organic fertilizers nearly always have much lower concentrations of plant nutrients and have the usual problems of economical collection, treatment, transportation and distribution.

Inorganic fertilizers nearly always are readily dissolved and unless added have few other macro and micro plant nutrients nor added any 'bulk' to the soil. Nearly all nitrogen that plants use is in the form of NH3 or NO3 compounds. The usable phosphorus compounds are usually in the form of phosphoric acid (H3PO4) and the potassium (K) is typically in the form of potassium chloride (KCl). In organic fertilizers nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium compounds are released from the complex organic compounds as the animal or plant matter decays. In commercial fertilizers the same required compounds are available in easily dissolved compounds that require no decay—they can be used almost immediately after water is applied. Inorganic fertilizers are usually much more concentrated with up to 64% (18-46-0) of their weight being a given plant nutrient, compared to organic fertilizers that only provide 0.4% or less of their weight as a given plant nutrient.

That's what you should know for starters.
As far as your problem with "mould" is concerned, you probably have high organic matter content in your soil mix. It happens very often in organic grows and is rarely dangerous for the plants.

Happy growing

 

[labexperiment]

Forum: Indoor Soil Cultivation Basics for Growing Indoors

This link may help you. Sorry do not know much about soil growing myself(other then my garden for vegetables), but if you are looking for easier then DWC may I recommend soil-less as an option to think about. Not to take away from the benefits of a soil grow but price wise, soil-less I believe is cheaper, and a little simpler IMO.

 

[BCbud9]

Okay thanks. Very informative. And I thought the mould would be a killer for the new plants so I planted them in some new soil. I almost tossed them out to avoid spreading anything to other cuttings in the area but I didn't notice anything on the plant itself. Wouldn't have mattered anyway the few others in the area I was worried about died before they rooted. Probably because I didn't use a humidity dome and didn't tend to them much and the rockwool dried out.
But anyway that's good to know. So long as it doesn't start to smell real bad like mould or start to spread up the stem I wont worry about it as much now if I see it.
And that link helped a lot labexperiment. There is a lot of posts on there that will help me out tons. Thanks. Also I don't know really anything about soil-less yet. I have heard of it a couple times but I have never read up what it was made up of or anything. I will consider it and look more into it. Do you have experience with soil-less! If so, any advice or problems to avoid!

Thanks again

 

[labexperiment]

3 parts peat-moss 1 part vermiculite 1 part per-lite, and use General Hydroponics 3 part nutrient system, you will probably need cal/mag, but that depends on if you use R/O water or tap water and then it depends on what your tap water is like. Very easy to grow with. The bottom link in my sig was originally was going to be soil but we went to soil-less instead because the soil mix was not right, we were missing some magnesium and phosphorus . John did a great job detailing the amount of nutrients used for almost every watering later in the journal.

 

[BCbud9]

Thanks again and wow very informative link. I was amazed with the results it can produce.